Posted in: Comics | Tagged: bob beerbohm, len wein, marv wolfman, neal adams, original art, roy thomas, steve ditko

Buying Neal Adams & Steve Ditko Original Art From a Hotel Room in 1969

One of the earliest comic book retailers, comic art collectors and comic historians Bob Beerbohm (author of Comic Book Store Wars) set up the Californian comic book store Comics & Comix Store #1 near the UC-Berkeley campus with Bud Plant and John Barrett, which went on to host comic conventions and become the first comic book chain store. Best of Two Worlds was Beerbohm's first solo comic book store, opened in November 1976, and later expanded into a chain with other partners. Best of Two Worlds went out of business in 1987 due to the massive flooding of its central warehouse in Emeryville, California a year earlier.

On social media,  Beerbohm has been showing off some original comic book artwork that he once owned, by Neal Adams and Steve Ditko, and the circumstances he acquired it, at a time when comic book publishers weren't returning artwork to the artists, and when there were rumours of artwork being rescued from dumpsters, taken from warehouses or destroyed in fire or floods. Bob has told aspects of this story before, but this week he decided to connect names to his claims, Marvel and DC comic book editors and writers Roy Thomas, Len Wein, and Marv Wolfman.  Thomas has responded in detail, stating that he had no connection to the transaction described.

Beerbohm began by showing off X-Men #57 pages 1, 13 and 15 and #59 page 1, by Neal Adams and Tom Palmer from 1969. "Written and edited by Roy Thomas. I bought this stupendous splash page for $5 from Len Wein, Marv Wolfman and Roy Thomas at 1969 St Louis World SF Convention in an upstairs hotel room stuffed with many thousands of comic book pages and covers. Spent $1200 on over 240 pages of Adams, Ditko, Kirby, Kubert. Got the entire Adams 22-page story for $5 a page. Plus complete books X-Men 58 and 59 as well. all $5 a page. There was over 5000 pages in that hotel room in 1969. We were not the first ones in to score. There was more left behind in NYC. I write what I write, I stand behind it, interpret what each one will."

There were more to add by Steve Ditko. "Eerie #10 1967. I bought this stupendous splash of carnage page for $5 from Len Wein Marv Wolfman and Roy Thomas at 1969 St Louis World SF Convention. Got the entire complete Creeper #2 3 4 books for $5 a page. Some 60 Ditko pages right there. Got the entire Ditko ST 129 DS ten pager for $5 a page. Spent $1200 on over 240 pages of Adams, Ditko, Kirby, Kubert. Got the entire Ditko Eerie #10 eight pager for $5 a page. Warren thought it so superior they reprinted it again in Eerie #21 1969… Strange Tales 129 page 8 & 9…."

And then he told the tale, in greater detail than before. "All I have riding on my horse is the truth. But I also solved the mysterious disappearance of a huge amount of Marvel and DC art in 1969. It did not begin to reach our 'fan' press in a major way until INSIDE COMICS #1 Winter 1974 when Editor Joe Brancatelli, a good friend back in the day, ran Neal Adams article with partial MIA list. There was over 5000 pages in that 1969 St Louis hotel room. All "saved from being thrown away" so they claimed so they liberated it all instead for themselves. They wanted to liberate $5 per page for ever one we wanted to haul out of that hotel room stuffed all over. We only had $1200. We could easily have spent ten times that if we had it. But we were just Midwest high school students from Fremont Nebraska meeting our first New York city slickers for the first time."

"I haven't shown any of the Adams and Ditko DC art we bought that day. Complete books Adams Spectre 2 and 4, Strange Adventures 211 Deadman, complete Creeper 2, 3, 4. Over 60 pages of Ditko Adams' very first DC work inking a Kubert Our Army At War backup story – 6 pager. $30 sold. A ten-page Adams Jerry Lewis story for $3 a page. $30 sold. Marv and Len were laughing in that hotel room. They said they scored all this DC art during the then recent DC move to new HQ building, They said all of it was going to be thrown away, So, they positioned themselves in the human train of people moving things towards the end of it going down the sidewalk. When they came past an alley, they took a sudden left turn, then began pushing this hotel 'bell-cap' cart which has the metal going in a tall half circle for hanging suits on wire hangers from.Like three tall stacks to the top brim of it That would be, what at least 12 feet of comic book pages and covers. They justified it all saying that day they had saved it all from landfill type destruction. Just so we could give them $5 a page. $1200 in total. All our money. We came back to Fremont on gas fumes."

That soon came. Len Wein is no longer with us, but Roy Thomas was also mentioned in connection here. But James Rosen posted "a few years back, I interviewed Roy Thomas at length for my forthcoming biography of Neal Adams. Yesterday I wrote to Roy to send him a link to this post with a simple question from me: "What sayeth you?" Here is Roy's reply, which he authorized me to post here."

Roy Thomas: "I have no memory of the event… doesn't seem likely I've had had that page, least of all in 1969 when it was just being published. Besides, Len, Marv, and I were never at any time in any kind of joint enterprise where we would've been selling art together…I don't know about Len and Marv per se, since they were close friends and I hardly knew them then. And $5 seems a ridiculously low price even for that day and age… so Beerbohm's story makes little sense to me. It's garbled memory at best, of that I can be sure, because of the above."

Beerbohm later continued, "Len and Marv told me and Steve Johnson how they got the DC art. I have not yet typed those key details in this FB post. But I can. Roy was also at that St Louis Worldcon in 1969. THAT was the Marvel connection I was looking to confirm. Sat 9 AM Roy, Len, Marvin did a comics panel together with Vaughn Bode, Jeff Jones, Larry Todd. I just recently got a copy of the St Louis programing guide. There are also pics of RT, MW and LW together with some other comics folk at that 69 show. RT is with his first wife."

UPDATE: John Cimino, Roy Thomas' manager has posted a wider response, edited to address the matters at hand. He quotes Roy Thomas over what he describes as "the outrageous and untrue charges made by Beerbohm", saying "Now, I've no idea if I was or was not at that SF con. Certainly I've no memory of it. I didn't generally go to SF cons. However, the date of that con happens to be fairly soon after the trip to Los Angeles that my first wife Jean and I made around the middle of August 1969, with the twin purposes of visiting our friend Gary Friedrich (who then lived in the Hollywood area) and then driving over to Las Vegas to see a live performance by Elvis Presley, who was just beginning the round of concerts that marked the last eight years of his life. Because of that LA/Vegas trip, it's not inconceivable that—perhaps partly because we also wanted to visit my parents, who lived 100+ miles south of St. Louis—we attended a day of that con simply because "it was there" and we happened to be in the area—i.e., we just informally showed up. Perhaps someone at the con even invited me to appear on a comics panel with Len and Marv (whom I didn't really know all that well at that time) and others… stranger things have happened. Of course, the fact that I may have been at the con (I've no conscious memory of it, but I'd believe it if I saw photos and other records to prove it) says nothing. Nada. Zilch. I've been on panels at many of the comics conventions I've attended over the years. That doesn't mean I was selling illicitly obtained artwork under or over the table… and I wasn't. However, while I cannot and will not speak for Len or Marv… I know that I was never, then or at any other time in my long life, engaged with Len and/or Marv in any kind of enterprise that involved the selling of anything, including comic art, either legally or illegally obtained. That part of Beerbohm's tale is pure delusional fantasy at best… malignant slander or libel at its worst. He should watch what he's saying… Perhaps Beerbohm did purchase pages of stolen art, then or at some other time or place. Clearly, nothing in his conscience or sense of legal rectitude prevented him from doing so. I only know that he didn't get them from me… so it's logical to suspect that a lot of the rest of his story is just as bogus as that part…. As I said to James Rosen and repeat now: Anyone who believes the literal truth of Bob Beerbohm's recent statements about that stolen artwork and its sources… is either vile-minded himself, or else a moron."

Bob Beerbohm added other details across the threads, "The art pages were all stacked up in 2-to-3-foot stacks covering most every surface in that hotel room. I estimate over 5000 pages from, DC, Marvel, Warren as well as Charlton Ditko pages. If they drove out, need for shipping container issues are not as intensely needed then." And he concluded "Am 70 now. Chronicling truths in Comic Book Store Wars to the best of my knowledge. As well as the knowledge of many hundreds of friends in this business which dates back to verifiable roots 180+ years ago Sept 14 1842 in New York City. What anybody chooses to think is something I cannot help them sort thru the muck carrying such a load. Marvel art by Kirby was showing up at shows as early as 1968 in verifiable photos of dealer's rooms of the day. Around the time comics fandom fanatic addicts were being hired. Out in LA at Marvel Mania in late 60s the teenage workers there mostly all absconded with the couple thousand pages sent there to make merchandise ideas off of. Out in LA in those then kids I know who ended up with the JIM 83 first Thor story complete. (He does not have it any more). At SDCC 1972 first El Cortez Hotel show from another for $50 I was offered the Steranko centerfold to the SHIELD #3 Hound of Baskervilles-inspired homage original art."

There is a lot more. But that's enough for right now, yes?

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!